Brooklyn’s ‘Bully Gang’ members headed to trial for racketeering, murders

The alleged leaders of a violent Brooklyn gang are set to go on trial for killing two rivals and a member of their own ranks — and the jury will be allowed to hear incriminating rap lyrics about why they wanted to take down one of the gang’s targets.

Four reputed members of the “Bully Gang,” which the feds say ran a cruel interstate drug trafficking operation and boasted of its dominance in social media posts and videos, will go on trial starting this week in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The murderous Bedford-Stuyvesant gang trafficked fentanyl, heroin and crack from New York to several Maine stash houses, recruiting sex workers to help with their drug trade and using violence to keep them in line, according to the feds.

The suspects, who face racketeering and other charges, include Moeleek “Moe Money” Harrell, who’s described as the gang’s leader and co-founder; Derrick “Dee” Ayers, described as a high-ranking member who ran the gang’s drug trafficking operation in Maine; Franklin “Spazz” Gillespie, an alleged enforcer accused of carrying out two murders personally; and Anthony “Biggie” Kennedy, another alleged longtime gang member.

The evidence against the men include cooperating witness testimony, recorded jail calls, cell phone data, text messages, social media posts — and portions of a rap song, “Who Real As My Gang,” by BG Styx, a deceased member.

“YB’s killer, I’mma drop him,” the song goes, referring to the 2015 killing of Bully Gang co-founder Charles “YB” Williams in Queens.

The judge overseeing the trial, Brian Cogan, wouldn’t include the whole song, which includes generic boasts about violence. He cited a decision by fellow Brooklyn Federal Court Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, who ruled that one of the killers of rap icon Jam Master Jay wouldn’t have his lyrics used against him at trial.

Even so, the line about YB is specific enough to stay, since the suspects are accused of conspiring to rub out his killer, Cogan stated.

“Those lyrics allude to a specific criminal motive tied to one of the allegations in this case, and therefore are sufficiently probative,” the judge wrote.

Other allegations include the March 3, 2018, murder of rival “Stukes Crew” member Jonathan Jackson. He opened fire on Bully Gang members at a gender reveal party, only to have Ayers chase him down and shooting him dead on Kings Highway, the feds allege.

In an odd twist, Jackson was hired to kill Bronx mobster Sylvester “Sally Daz” Zottola as part of a plot orchestrated by Zottola’s son, but he was gunned down first. Zottola was killed months later.

The feds are also accusing Gillespie of teaming up with a fellow Bully Crew member Mike Hawley to execute another rival from the Stukes Crew, Paul Hoilett, on April 11, 2020.

Hawley drove Gillespie to Buffalo Ave. and Sterling Place, where Gillespie shot Hoilett point-blank from behind, the feds allege.

Four days later, Gillespie and Kennedy killed Hawley in Far Rockaway, Queens, because Gillespie, who was recently released from federal prison and desperate not to return, fretted that Hawley was wanted for Hoilett’s murder, and Hawley getting arrested would lead back to him, the feds say.

Including the four on trial this week, the feds have arrested 53 people so far in connection with the Bully Gang — including two city Correction Department officers on Rikers Island accused of taking bribes to help smuggle K2-soaked papers into the jail. Forty-one have pleaded guilty.